media reports of a farcical ICC


PAKISTAN fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have been cleared of doping and their bans have been overturned.
The chairman of an appeals committee said neither player was advised on taking vitamin supplements which may have led to their positive tests for the banned steroid nandrolone.

"This appeal committee, therefore, holds that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif will not be deemed to have committed a doping offence,'' , committee chairman Fakhruddin Ibrahim, a retired judge, told a media conference in Karachi.

"The ban and punishment imposed by the earlier tribunal is hereby set aside as being contrary to the provision of laws.''

Both players expressed their relief at the successful appeals.

"I am breathing again, my life was jolted no-end by the ban. I can't describe the feeling,'' said Akhtar, 31, who almost announced his retirement from cricket after the ban.

"I was so disappointed that I was not sleeping properly.

"I am thankful to the Almighty, and to the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Dr Naseem Ashraf, to give both of us a proper chance to fight the ban.''

"I missed playing cricket for my country and now I hope that I will resume my career.

"The whole team had supported me and I am thankful to my teammates and every cricket lover who prayed for me.''

Asif, 23, an emerging star before the ban, said his whole family had been in turmoil since the dope test results were revealed in October.

"I am delighted to hear I will be playing again,'' he said.

"These two months have been the worst of my life and only today I resumed training.

"I hope the bad days are over now.

"I badly want to play and it was only through the support of my captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and coach Bob Woolmer that I kept myself going.''

A tribunal banned Akhtar, 31, for two years in October for doping while Asif, 23, received a one-year ban for the same alleged offence even though bothdenied taking illegal substances.

Ibrahim said the three-member appeals committee madeits decision by a 2-1 majority. The other members of the committee are former Test cricketer Haseeb Ahsan and doping expert Dr Danish Zaheer.

Ibrahim said the committee found it was "clearly, plainly evident that Shoaib Akhtar nor Mohammad Asif were ever warned or cautioned against taking supplements''.

Asif was told to discontinue taking the supplements only when he told team physio Darryn Lifson about them in August 2006, he said.

Neither player was "even provided with any international or local publication warning them against the use supplements,'' the committee found.

It was the committee's "considered view that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif have successfully established that they had an honest and reasonable belief that the supplements ingested by them did not contain any prohibited substances''.

They were cleared under a law on exceptional circumstances in the Pakistan Cricket Board's laws.
At the time the bans were imposed the International Cricket Council had praised the Pakistan Cricket Board and the initial drugs tribunal for their handling of the case and for imposing the penalties.

- AFP




No excuse and typical of why many Aussies think Pakistan is immune to Cricket laws.

A lot of athletes claim to have `unknowingly` taken banned substances in vitamin supplements, cold and flu preparations etc but they don`t get away with it. Not sure that this should be any different in this case. It does make the whole thing look rather farcical.